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Capt. Phil

Capt. Phil

Sailor Apprentice
Hi Guys,
I am indeed creating a new pirate themed game, initially for Windows. I have spent approximately 6 months on it already. Its a first person game, using Unity. The only downside is its just me creating it. I originally thought it to be a tech demo, but it has grown alot. I have tried to not go over board with it, however, I couldn't help my self in certain areas.
Id like to get your initial thoughts on it, and any suggestion direction. Il be uploading screen shots of it so far.
Basic plot is, you are ship wrecked pirate, trying to get his booty back and make his way in life, surviving on desert islands, and eventually after getting back to the main Island via raft, complete quests to reclaim what was rightfully yours (booty, ship ect) Arrrr mateys!
 
Interesting. I'd quite like to see what you have done so far.
What kind of gameplay do you have so far? Any other details you can share? And is this to be commercial or not?

We're doing pirate stuff in Unity ourselves as well, of course, and I am always interested in more collaboration to make things easier for everyone.
 
Pieter Boelen said:
Interesting. I'd quite like to see what you have done so far.
What kind of gameplay do you have so far? Any other details you can share? And is this to be commercial or not?

We're doing pirate stuff in Unity ourselves as well, of course, and I am always interested in more collaboration to make things easier for everyone.
Click to expand...

Game play consists of tasks with objects found and taken from environment including crafting a bit like in 'The Forest'. Weapons, a fair few creatures, underground caverns, UI for inventory and status. Still an awful lot to do, I would really like to get it on 'Green Light' in Steam of course. Iv aimed for more a realistic feel, then a cartoon one like 'Salt'. Purchased components for things like the Ocean, but I have done alot of modelling myself, and the AI / Enemys will be a mixture from 'Mixamo' animations and various things I have found and created. Nearly all the coding I have done (im a prof developer for 15 years, and making games since the early 90s). Terrain is somewhat hand made, and some from World Machine. Modelling in 3DsMax and Blender (even though Blender is hard to use, im trying to avoid it for fbx's when animating and rigging as it takes forever but is more relable than max. Using Unity 4, as I think Unity 5 is too buggy still!
 
Sounds like you're working on half the game that we would like to make ourselves as you've got the shore part well-covered with those features.
All that is missing is a sea aspect to the game and you'd pretty much have something like Sea Dogs/Pirates of the Caribbean/Age of Pirates.

@Captain Murphy and @Thagarr would probably be interested in this one as well.
 
Pieter Boelen said:
Sounds like you're working on half the game that we would like to make ourselves as you've got the shore part well-covered with those features.
All that is missing is a sea aspect to the game and you'd pretty much have something like Sea Dogs/Pirates of the Caribbean/Age of Pirates.

@Captain Murphy and @Thagarr would probably be interested in this one as well.
Click to expand...

Thanks alot. I will upload some screen shots tonight of what I have done so far. Its at one of those stages where im jumping from bit to bit instead of concentrating in one area and getting one bit definable finished. Populating the world is a lengthy process I need to do with handy objects, unless I automate somehow like I have with a ambient creature spawner for things like birds crabs insects ect, and implementing an automatic LOD routine as im using Unity free to keep the fps about 30, automatic partial level loaders and unloaders in colliders provide this, a bit like in Dark Souls, where they have long parts of the level you have to run though so to unload and load sections without interrupting game play, so I need to work how to do this nicely when entering buildings - the Pirate Tavern always has Grog on tap!
 
Ahoy Capt' Phil, welcome aboard mate! Glad to see another pirate game on the horizon! I don't have a lot of free time at the moment, but I will see if I can get a front page article up sometime this weekend. What time frame are you looking to release in mate?
 
Capt. Phil said:
Screenshots
Click to expand...


Hey there, well it will probably be next year for a version 1.0 if I compact it down to a reasonable amount of content but still have some decent play time length measured in hours and difficulty of tasks supplied. Coming up with new unique ideas is the hard bit I think! I dont want to make an exact copy of anything out there, more influence of aspect of certain games I have played yet still making it enjoyable, attractive to be in the world and making the player come back for more.
 
Indeed those screenshots do look pretty promising.

Are there any particular things you would like comments on and/or help with? Or might you be interested in an open collaboration with our Hearts of Oak Unity developers?
We have something similar with the developer of Blackwake as well. I always figure, we might as well help each other and make everything the best we can. Right?
 
I will let you guys know if need help, its still early stages and I haven't come across any obstacles yet as such, more of the question of keep finding the time to work on it, I figure if I do a little bit at least every day it will get there and I will have something playable.
 
Ahoy,
Despite my tight schedule, I have found time to continue my quest to create a Pirate game, I dont want to give too much away, but it has made progress, specifically the main island!
Arggghh mateys.
 
That looks like a really well-built ship model in the background. Did you make that yourself?
 
Hi,
I have been working away, converting to Unity 5, adding more detail, rooms, more game play, AI and optimizing so it doesn't have too many triangles on screen at once while still looking good and atmospheric, and above all fun to play!
 
Goodluck man! I'm really excited for it! Do you have a boat controller for it? Did you do the ocean shader yourself? I'll be implementing suimonos ocean and UFPS super soon into my game soon.
 
Thanks, i am still working on it everyday (or night as it was).
The pirate ship is stationary at the moment, however the raft is pilotable! The ocean shaders.. well i haven't decided on a final one yet, shown is smartwater, but unity 5 has a good one, and i have modified one i downloaded to be more what i need. Suimono I have tried aswell, but its a complex setup and I didnt get it exactly how i wanted.
Iv been concentrating on AI/NPC/game play at the moment. I feel I must write nearly everything myself! that way I know exactly how it works.
 
Well the game is still in development, I have a long list of voluntary beta testers already, the islands, and oceans are filling up with friend and foe, the player has numerous things to do, some individual tasks, some repeating tasks, the nemesis of the game is regularly hounding the player, and their on going quest is to find a way of bringing them justice (and take back what was stolen of course). the UI is looking better, and optimizations have made it run better on mid entry machines. Custom code written so far is about 30,000 lines. Adding new things has become easier, such as items, tasks, dialogs, action sequences, spawning of items, creatures, gangs, flocks. Ocean traffic systems are working nicely, so ships can follow routes, pre determined or player commanded - which may involve sea battles, but that the luck of the draw! (my wife wants to kill me the amount of time i have poured into this), however its a labor of love and I think its an awesome game as I really like the genre (old sailing ships and tropical islands are too cool). Maybe I will get it out this year!
 
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